Stopgap
by Helix Spencer
Summary: Tony Stark has a quiet business meeting with a few old friends. One-shot ONLY. Post Stark Expo. Enjoy! (:


**Hi everybody. I've been familiar with this site for a while now, but recently I finally cracked and created my own account, so here I am (: For the sake of the plot, please ignore the fact that Men in Black was a movie made in the nineties and that Iron Man was made awhile later. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thanks!**

 **XOXO, Helix.**

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Tony Stark had been waiting hours.

 _Hours._

But he had some business to take care of.

Not climbing stocks or reports from R&D or some issue _like members of Legal working for secret government agencies._

That could wait. This business meeting could not.

He sipped at his espresso, annoyed that he had actually shown up early for these people-too annoyed, in fact, to really consider them friends, even though they were-but it was too important to ignore. It was actually quite tedious. Sometimes he wished that his father had never even told him about it.

Tapping his fingers on the table, he glared out of the grimy little cafe window. He would _not_ call Happy early.

"Sorry we're late. We didn't take the car."

Tony turned lazily, beguiling his relief. His leg had been starting to cramp up. He flicked down his dark sunglasses.

"Good Lord, K," he declared. "What are you wearing?"

K gave him a flat look and adjusted his bright, floral Hawaiian shirt. "You told us to wear a disguise."

"That isn't a disguise, that's a Halloween costume," Tony muttered, draining his his coffee and plunking it down on the table. He pursed his lips. "Where's Zed?"

"Couldn't make it. He had business." He sat down in front of Tony.

"Please...sit." Tony said belatedly, and turned to the other man-a tall, dark fellow. "Did you not get the memo?"

Indeed, he had on a crisp black suit and sleek Ray Bans, with glossy black shoes that had be at least a size 13. He remained standing.

"Tony, this Agent J. He's new to the company. Helped me save the world a couple of years ago, if you can believe it." K rolled his eyes.

J's change in personality was instant. Tony blinked.

"Helped _you?_ Nu-uh," J lost his sunglasses and sat down hard in the booth, next to K. He wrapped a long arm around his shoulders. " _You_ hired _me._ You _needed_ my help."

K shook off J's arm. "We did not 'need' your help. You chased after that alien in the Guggenheim. We couldn't have you talking."

J gave K an incredulous look before whispering loudly, "Do you _mind?_ You can't just go throwing words around like that, man." He glanced at a waitress and winked, before leaning back toward K. "You really wanna neuralize her? She's _cute._ "

"I thought you had a girlfriend." K glared and ordered a sweet tea from the same waitress.

"You're right," J shrugged and sat forward toward Tony. "It is an _honor_ , man. Love your work." He held out a hand.

Tony's lips quirked and shook it. "Do you, now?"

J grinned a broad, goofy smile. "Yeah, man. That Iron Man stuff's really, really cool. Can you really fly as fast as sound? I mean, I heard 'bout it, but I had to ask."

Tony puffed up a little, his previous mood gone. "Faster, actually. About a year ago I outran some fighter pilots in the Middle East. They were trying to shoot me down because I was in a no-fly zone and I went supersonic, they thought I was some kind of UAV or UFO or something-"

"-which is why we're here." K cut them both off.

Tony sighed and nodded, pulling a folded piece of paper out of his jacket pocket. "Right. I have the list."

"List of what?" J frowned.

"We'll get to that. Zed usually comes to these little business meetings but I suppose since you're here now you might as well know the basics." Tony shrugged. "K?"

K turned to J while Tony ordered a Sprite and a sandwich. "Howard Stark, Tony's father, had been pretty helpful to MiB since we started up. Funding for different projects and making sure the government stayed off our scent, stuff like that."

He took a long gulp of his sweet tea.

"However, when SHIELD started to really gain some traction, Howard had to leave one of his stickier cases to us-"

J held an incredulous hand up to stop K. "SHIELD's _real?"_

"They're real, alright-a real pain in my iron neck." Tony rolled his eyes and took a large bite of his sandwich. "Don't worry about it. I didn't find out until last year and my dad founded it."

" _Anyway,"_ K growled, "SHIELD was investigating a Class Three crash-landing in the midwest around the fifties. Two UFO's, medium-sized, no survivors." J whistled, but K ignored him and continued, "The wreckage was, miraculously, mostly intact. They were the most advanced pieces of extraterrestrial technology that SHIELD had encountered since the discovery of Asgardian Tesseract in the bottom of the Arctic Ocean. But since they didn't have the tech then to reverse-engineer it, they asked MiB to help protect it." He took another sip of his tea. "Since it was Howard's discovery, they legally belong to Tony."

"Whoa, _whoa._ " J pointed a finger at Tony. "Your old man croaked and left you a couple of flying _saucers?"_

"They were included in my parents' will along with my other assets and properties, as well as you guys' contact information." Tony shrugged. "MiB's come in handy."

J swore. "What do you do with them? Put them in storage?"

"You, uh, convert them into viewing towers," Tony mumbled, with a deliberate glance out the window. He had always made sure that these unorthodox business dealings always occurred in the same grimy little cafe that they did since they began, and they were _always_ in sight of the viewing towers of his Expo. Zed being there didn't change that.

J followed his look and let out a disbelieving laugh. " _Those_ UFO's. Really? You're kidding."

"Um, no." Tony sipped at his Sprite casually. "You can hardly even tell that it crashed into the Unisphere."

"You know about that...?" J glanced down.

"I've got insurance," Tony shrugged. "MiB got that cleaned up in no time flat, let me tell you, I was very impressed. Doesn't look like anything even happened. I imagine, though, the baseball stadium full of witnesses was probably a little bit tougher."

K snorted. "PR's worst nightmare."

"Anyhow, it them awhile to convert them to look like the original towers from my dad's original Expo, but mostly, nobody recognizes them for what they are." He tapped the folded paper in the middle of the table and slid it forward with his fingertips. "These are the exceptions, this year. Pepper compiled their contact information as best she could."

J picked it up and began to skim. "All these people came to you directly?"

He simply pulled a face. "Most of them do, probably to save themselves from looking like idiots in front of the public. They go through HR with their claims and they're sent to either Pepper or an on-call SHIELD floater. For the people who _aren't_ as concerned, one of JARVIS' oldest programs is to periodically filter the web for conspiracy videos relating to the Expo and stuff like that." He let out a short breath. "It's a real headache."

"'JARVIS'...?" J trailed off.

"It's his artificially intelligent butler," K answered absently, taking the list and scanning it, too. "It's awfully long this time. Do you know why this is?"

"What happened with Vanko," Tony supplied, proceeding to crush his soda can and making a mental note to recycle it later. "People probably stopped to take a second look, did a little research and put two and two together. Dad tried to erase what he could, pin it on the government and all that jazz, but there's only so much you can cover up."

"That makes sense," K nodded and folded the piece of paper further into quarters before stuffing it unceremoniously into his shirt pocket. "We'll take care of it. Tell Pepper she did a nice job as always."

"Will do," Tony nodded. "You sure you don't want me to send you a more detailed list of phone numbers? I thought that one was a little sparse, personally. I'll email it to you."

"Which email have you been using?" K frowned. J watched with interest. As far as he knew, K didn't have an email address.

Tony looked mildly startled. "The old one, right?" He wondered out loud.

"Delete it. I change it every time the world is threatened, you know that."

J raised his eyebrows. Hm.

"Right, so like every other week?" Tony coughed lightly watching as K motioned for J to move out of the booth. J slid out and stood, K following him before slapping down a couple of bills on the table, seemingly out of nowhere.

Tony made a strangled, protesting noise. "I was going to _pay_ for that-"

"I know." K cut him off. "We've got to go-"

" _Now?"_ Tony exclaimed. "I've been waiting for hours and you're not even here thirty minutes-"

"Duty calls," K shrugged blithely.

Tony sighed. "Business as usual, huh?"

"'Fraid so." K canted his head at Tony. "You do your old man proud, son."

Tony rubbed his neck awkwardly. "Thanks. I'll call you if I need anything," he promised.

J reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a clean white card, before extending it to Tony. He fought a twitch-he didn't like being handed things, ever-but accepted it anyway. He flipped it over to reveal the shimmery MiB logo. Tony knew it well enough. He had about a hundred identical ones in a Reeboks shoe-box in his closet back in Malibu.

"Just in case." J grinned.

Tony reached out his hand again and shook J's. "It's been a real honor, James."

J's jaw dropped. "How-"

"SHIELD secret, sorry." Tony beamed. "Nah, they have files on all of you. Their firewalls are total crap these days." He dug a crumpled card out of his wallet. "Here's Pepper's business card. Call us if you need anything."

"I will," J nodded, grinning.

"Let's get a move on," K beckoned, already at the door.

"M'coming," J muttered. "See ya, Tony."

Tony nodded, giving J a wave and K a lazy salute as they walked out and turned the corner. The door jingled disjointedly as it closed. It was a nice, familiar sound.

Turning, Tony waved the old man over from behind the enamel counter of his quiet café.

He shuffled over to the window booth-Tony smiled congenially. "This your place?"

The man's mustache twitched, and he shrugged. "I was the head cook in the original restaurant, and it's closed down, now, but he left it to me. Left his jewelry store to someone else, I dunno. I like the quiet. Too much commotion in the city." He waved his hand at an out-of-place oil portrait of an old man with an orange cat on his lap. The canvas was shredded in the corners, the gold framed dented. Most likely by flying glass, Tony guessed. "Especially after that rogue exterminator stabbed him an' his friend."

"Shame what happened to him." Tony agreed, remembering vaguely hearing about it. "You're doing a good job with the place. How late are you open tonight?"

"Are you...staying for dinner?"

He had already stayed for breakfast, coffee, and lunch, but he also knew he was an important man, this customer, and had a feeling that he had been frequenting this place long before he ever owned it.

"Yeah," Tony smiled, and slid him a heavy tip before making himself comfortable in the booth. The old man's eyes widened. "Let's start with some pierogis, hm?"

 _Fin._

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 **A/N: Please review! (:**


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